Greg Averienos - Jeep Warrior Race 6 - Race report

Greg Averienos - Jeep Warrior Race 6 - Race report

The Jeep Warrior Race 6 - My Story

So as i'm sure most of you know a race might be won or lost on the battlefield but it's in your training that you equip yourself for battle! My training was slightly lacking for this past Warrior as my weekends were filled with some awesome adventures like Ice Climbing up in the Drakensberg and Kloofing up in Sabie and these weekends although not intense training, due to the change in activity they left me fairly broken and unable to train in the following weeks sufficiently... Then when all seemed good and time to get some final prep in I got attacked by the flu bug squint emoticon but dosed up on all the PURE Nutrition vitamins and minerals to boost my immune system for recovery but ja not the best prep, sorry coach!

Although knowing I was slightly undertrained coming into the race I told myself that it's better than being overtrained and injured! Scouting the course on Saturday with fellow competitors and friends, we saw that it was going to be a hard and hilly run with Breaking Point looking quite a bit easier than in the teaser pics... But none the less I was excited and ready to push myself to my limit grin emoticon

Race day started off with WarriorRic psyching us all up just to remind us we were at a Warrior Race!! The crowd counted us down and we were off, bit of pushing and shoving saw me drop back slightly more than usual but made that up at the first "obstacle" being a steep rocky uphill, can definitely say my aggressively soled Inov8's helped with that! So Claude, Thomas and Louis set a high starting pace from there and I could feel my legs weren't happy with the pace already... So settled into a pace I knew I was comfortable with and ran my own race not to worried what they were doing upfront, formed a chasing bunch with Willem and Jay Jay catching Louis after a couple of kilometers as he was unfortunately having issues with his injured knee. Just before the Wounded Soldier (more like small child wink emoticon – felt rather light this time) Willem and myself were able to pull a bit of a gap on the rest. About a kilometer later the new Jeep athlete (Joshua) managed to catch us but then we lost him again at Mission impossible, after taking a sip of water at the water point Willem managed to make a gap on me... For the next while I was running alone, tire pull was a bit light but at least they got us to take it for a decent run, they definitely added the extra weight missing previously to the farmer carry making it quite a tough one!

As my legs started to feel better my stomach didn't, but at least that was easier to block out!! I kept telling myself I just had to keep pace till the end where I'd be able to make up in the obstacles. When all the mental games start you just have to convince your body to push through, quitting hurts way more!!

I had a slight lapse of concentration and focus with Louis join me again at the Grip Ripper which saw me lose my balance and fall off, while I started again Louis got a bit of a lead on me. I made this up at the Wall of China and from here we ran together for quite some time, running with someone definitely helps you keep pace! We started pushing slowly trying to close the gap with Willem, seeing him as the trails twist and double back on each other. I managed to get a bit of a gap on Louis down the big slide and pushed hard to keep the gap, this was now where all the exciting obstacles started, and where I'd wanted to be for the last half an hour!! Managed to make good progress on the obstacle with none posing too much of a challenge, just having to change my technique on the hanging tires halfway through... Then it was time for Breaking Point grin emoticon grin emoticon As I was leaving the tires I saw Willem still sitting on the resting loop half way through but when I got to their he was just starting the obstacle again. I started just after him with both of us making it to the halfway rest point fairly easily. This was where I made my move, I decided not to rest and went straight on with the cliff hanger and hanging net portion of the obstacle... And... I got through!! Kicked that bell and I was out of there, knowing there was only two obstacles left there was no time to stuff around! Mud Monster was thick and slow going, as I was nearing the end of the first section I saw Willem jumping into the mud so I knew the race was still on... Luckily got up and over all the humps fairly easily and was well on my way to tower of rage when splat stepped in a big mud puddle and blinded myself in my left eye, anyway with one eye open I made my way up to the tower and was very grateful to jump off there into that murky water, and I could see again!! It was then a short push to finish off the race in a time of 1h18min and a 3rd place, was so happy to cross that finish line!!

The day didn't end there... I had my Cactic Fitness Black-opps challenge to defend, on Saturday I had set a leading time of 7:02 for the challenge (10 muscle-ups, 20 weighted squats, 20 weighted pull-ups, 20 weighted knee raises, 20 ring dips and 30 decline push-ups). While we were racing today someone had broken my record though, so after a short rest and loosening up I went to try get it back tongue emoticon I managed to finish in 5:43 this time once again securing the top spot... Oh and my training partner (Jaco Lourens) won the Blue challenge so obviously we doing something right tongue emoticonThen it was off to do the Rookie with Michelle and her sister, which was great fun!! Its awesome when you get to just chill and have fun tongue emoticonI had to cut it a bit short though to go to prize giving and the announcement of the SA team for OCR World Championships. It is an honor and a privilege to be selected as one of the 3 male athletes in the team!

Thanks to everyone that was there to support, all those cheering from the side it really makes a big difference! Thanks to my dad (Alec Avierinos) for all he has done for the team and for all the support from my friends and family, wouldn't be where I am without you! Then a big thanks to Grohe for feeding and cleaning all your hungry Warriors, we really appreciate it and it's awesome to have you as part of team Nevarest!!JP I'm ready for the next set of your killer training program grin emoticon

Thanks everyone and congrats to all the warriors out there who conquered the course! Was good to see everyone again!

USA here we come!! grin emoticon

If you haven't yet, give me a follow on instagram and twitter @GREG_AVIERINOS to follow my progress...